| |
Why does the "home of the free" lock
up 2 million adults and children-most of them people of color?
"The uncomfortable truth is that the national attitude
on crime is more firmly grounded in race than in putative crime
rates. The surge in crime rates occurred between 1965 and 1973.
The general trend since that time, with 'blips' in 1989 and 1991,
has been for crime to either remain stable or to decline.
While most people assume jail overcrowding results from rising
crime rates, increased violence, or general population growth,
that is seldom the case. Here, in order of importance, are the
major contributors to jail overcrowding:
-
The number of police officers
-
The number of judges
-
The number of courtrooms
-
The size of the district attorney's staff
-
Policies of the state's attorney's office concerning which
crimes deserve the most attention
-
The size of the staff of the entire court system
-
The number of beds available in the local jail
-
The willingness of victims to report crimes
-
Police department policies concerning arrest
-
The arrest rate within the police department
-
The actual amount of crime committed
It is common for a 'trickle-up effect' to set in. Although
there may be little or no change in the ways serious crimes are
handled, those who engage in minor infractions of the law end up
receiving harsh penalties as well, thereby 'casting the net' of
social control ever wider. Such matters should give the nation
pause as we move aggressively to build more prisons and camps, but
there is little to suggest any respite."
From American Gulag (link below), Jerome G.
Miller, 2000
Overcrowding isn't necessary. It's
deliberate.
Stop legitimizing human rights
abusers!
Would
Massachusetts DOC Commissioner
Harold Clarke know a human rights
violation if he saw one? We are
convinced not. WHY? Because he has
been an employee of Corrections
for over 35 years. Clarke rose
through the ranks to become
Secretary of the Nebraska DOC, a
position he held for 14 years before
moving to Washington State DOC from
2005 to 2007. At Gov. Deval
Patrick's invitation he now heads up
Massachusetts DOC. Award winner and
former Washington State prisoner
Paul Wright's publication,
Prison
Legal News has, since 2000,
published several critical articles
in which Clarke and the Nebraska DOC
have been the subject.
PLN Articles:
"I have a
story to tell--about how a doctor
can be used to kill patients. I will
talk to anybody you want me to. I
spent twelve years of my life, and
these people pushed me around and
turned me into something horrible.
I am ashamed of what I have
become... I really am. For the first
time, I stood up and said, "I can't
kill anymore. Too much. These are
human beings, for crying out loud."
Dr. Faisal Ahmed, interview with
Nebraska Ombudsmans' Office
Sept.
15th, 1998.
WHISTLE-BLOWING
DOCTOR SHAKES UP NEBRASKA DOC,
November 2000
A 30 year
veteran of Nebraska's DOC, once seated
as Nebraska's Secretary of
"Corrections", Clarke maintained a
blind eye to denial of medical care.
The needless death of a prisoner who
received no emergency care when he
suffered a heart attack in September
1998 led Dr. Faisal Ahmed to blow the
whistle on prisoner health care and
Clarke's oversight. A 1999 report by
the state Ombudsman's Office found the
prison health delivery system wanting
in "every aspect". The report, over
114 pages with hundreds of additional
pages of exhibits stated, "In summary,
we have found the agency's medical
department to be understaffed,
inadequately trained, poorly organized
and badly led."
Secretary
Clarke's response? Dr. Ahmed was
suspended three times in the year
following. The State Personnel Board
concluded the doctor was a
"whistleblower under the Government
Effectiveness Act." Dr. Ahmed filed a
federal lawsuit against Nebraska
prison officials in March, 2000.
DR. YANK:
PRISON DENTIST NEARLY KILLS PATIENT,
June 2007
The ACA is a
membership organization of
corrections officials, whose dues
pay for accreditation inspections.
ACA standards are woefully lax and
seldom enforced. Clarke was
elected president of the ACA in
Sept. 2008. During his tenure as
Nebraska DOC Secretary, and
shortly after his Department was
the subject of a scathing
Ombudsman's Report, he evaluated
the Suffolk County (MA) jail and
House of Correction as an "impartial" evaluator for the ACA.
Clarke's review gave the
scandal-ridden County lock-up a
score of 98.96. "Shortly after
accreditation, seven guards were
charged with federal crimes for
assaulting and abusing prisoners.
In addition, a number of women
prisoners have come forward to
report rapes and other forms of
sexual abuse by male guards at the
jail." The Globe reported on June
20, 2001, "Suffolk Jail Audit
Group Faulted, Critics Demand New
Review Panel."
ACA and DOC
Affiliations: Conflict of
Interest
Shortly after Clarke's election
as ACA president he loosened the
already lax medical oversight
and evaluative standards of
county lock-ups by assigning the
ACA as the sole evaluator for MA
county corrections.
Since Clarke's arrival in
Massachusetts, prison wardens
have imposed ever more punitive
conditions, in contradiction to
the 2003 Governors Commission on
Corrections Reform
recommendations. Prisoner health
care is as deplorable as ever.
Selected recent "events" within
the MA-DOC:
1) For three years Patrick, held
at Bridgewater, has been refused
tests to diagnose and treat a
large lump on the back of his
neck. He reports that the lump
has lately increased in size and
become painful and that more
lumps are appearing on his body.
Guards and medical staff stymie
his repeated efforts to obtain
care.
2) Last week elderly prisoner
Harry lay bleeding out for
hours in his bed at the
MCI-Shirley Health Services
Unit. Poor monitoring of his
Coumadin (a blood thinner)
levels nearly killed him. He was
sent to the Intensive Care Unit
at Brigham and Women's Hospital.
His wife of more than twenty
years was not told about this
emergency. The DOC subsequently
ordered B&W not to inform
Harry's wife of his status.
Her calls to DOC administrators,
including the Commissioner, were
ignored. Not until the
intervention of an outside
watchdog, The Wrongful Death and
Injury Institute did the DOC
release documents detailing his
medical condition to his wife
as required by law;
January 2009--An Old Colony
Correctional Center prisoner
bangs on his cell door for
thirty minutes for
medical help. His cellmate cries
out to the guards too. There is
no response. The prisoner is
dead within the day.
3) In November 2008, MCI-Bay
State Superintendent Corsini
instituted a 9:30pm to 5:30 am
curfew on bathroom access.
Corsini easily obtained a waiver
from Department of Public Health
regulations to shutter a
bathroom on each of its three
floors during the night. (Bay
State has "dry cells"; the
prisoner rooms cells do not have
toilets.) Corsini has slashed
visiting days and hours
repeatedly. He ordered staff to
remove seats and tables from the
visiting area thereby
deliberately creating
overcrowding and causing loved
ones to be turned away.
Treatment of visitors has
worsened.
We cite these examples as only
the latest in a long train of
rights violations. Whether or
not you agree that incarceration
creates more problems than it
solves, people are sent to
prison AS punishment, not FOR
punishment; anything else is
extra-judicial.
If the U.S. is to stop military
torture abroad we must
acknowledge domestic torture and
abuse on the local level. After
all Clarke is part of the system
that brought us Charles Graner,
Lance Trotter, Abu Ghraib and
Guantanamo, waterboarding and
electric shock torture of
civilian suspects, and sensory
deprivation torture units. It is
up to all of us to follow
through and hold human rights
violators and their
collaborators accountable.
Please consider this information
as you watch reformers and
advocates, eager to build
relationships with the DOC,
disassociate from the systemic
abuse in an effort to make mass
incarceration more palatable.
Why Terminally Ill Prisoners are Left to
Die Behind the Walls of the
Massachusetts State Prison System
From a MA prisoner, December 2008
Factoring in all of the medical expenses
and security cost, the last few years in
the life of Nick Montos cost
Massachusetts tax payers in excess of
one million dollars. At the expense of
the Commonwealth, Mr. Montos had
received triple by-pass surgery, the
implantation of a pace maker, cancer
treatment, and medical services for a
host of age-related illness, not to
mention emergency life ending care. Mr.
Montos, who at the time of his death on
November 30, 2008 was 92 years of age,
and barely able to walk without the
assistance of other prisoner, surely
could not have posed any threat to
public safety.
What does
the term Custom Therapeutic Module
mean
to you?
See the Massachusetts Department of
Correction's interpretation:
To view, point to
and click on the images.
When Liberal Paternalism Becomes Collusion
with the Department of Correction
Read
Torture as therapy
and therapy as punishment
BREAKDOWN: The Prison 'Suicide'
Crisis
Advisory: SHaRC
cannot confirm the veracity of this
series. Reader beware.
With 15
suicides in three years, inmates have
taken their own lives in Massachusetts
prisons at roughly triple the national
rate for state prisons. And hundreds
more inmates are hurting themselves and
attempting suicide. A Globe Spotlight
Team investigation found that most of
the deaths came after careless errors
and deadly decisions by Department of
Correction officials and health staff,
at times when inmates were obviously at
risk.
Nelson
Rodriguez was a mentally-retarded
26-year-old when he hanged himself in
the notorious 10-block isolation unit
at MCI-Cedar Junction. Unable to
master the rules of prison life, he
was repeatedly punished with solitary
confinement.
As prisons become the asylum
of last resort for the
mentally ill, desperation,
frustration and violence are
rising on both sides of the
cell door. About 50 times each
month, inmates are assaulting
prison staff members. And, at
nearly the same rate, inmates,
many of whom say they are
abused by officers, attempt to
kill or injure themselves. The
Spotlight Team examines the
tension between mentally
disturbed inmates and their
jailers.
What Do Prisoners Have to Say?
The $40M
Ripoff
Call to Action.
There is an
opportunity to bring OUR insight, our
expertise to this issue and to the greater
public next week. There are many avenues here
for effecting REAL CHANGE.
Testimony
regarding House No. 1723, Petition
of Carl M. Sciortino, Jr., and others relative to the
construction of new correctional facilities
and providing
for an investigation of incarceration and its impact on
public safety, 08 May 2007
Testimony
Oversight Hearings on
Prison Suicide and Prison Mental Health, 01
May 2007
Testimony of the
Statewide Harm Reduction Coalition
Supporting Documentation
In memory of:
2007
Jarred Aranda
-
Mark Cunningham
-
Russ Dagenais
-
Francelina Soares Furtado
-
Miguel Velasquez
2006
Glen Bourgeois
-
Nicole Davis
-
Anthony
Garafolo
-
Michael Keohane
-
Steven
Koumaris
-
Eduardo Soto
-
Johnny Walker
2005
Pedro
Alvarez
-
Andrew Armstrong
-
Ronald Binnette
-
Daniel McMullen
-
Nelson Rodriguez
-
Jason Smith
-
John Yovino
2003
Kelly Jo Griffen
***
"[President
Nixon] emphasized that you
have to face the fact that the whole problem is
really the blacks. The key is to devise a system
that recognizes this while not appearing to."
~ Diary of H. R.
Haldeman
Chief of Staff, Nixon
Administration
In 1971, Richard Nixon
declared the War on Drugs.
That failed war continues to
have a grossly disproportionate impact
on people of color.
Link
DOES
POLICY CREATE OVERCROWDING?
HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS
For Your
Consideration
|
|
TM
